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Enjoyed it. Um so a couple of quick things as we get ready to get started um this morning. I wanted to uh just mention to you guys we're we're doing this series on knowing God. And we as Christians or as a church, we believe that God is knowable and or at least in part that he's knowable. He's given us a capitality ca uh capability, a capacity. I tried to say both of those at once. New word. Uh so he's given us a capacity to know him. And uh obviously there's several things that we have that help us in this process of knowing him. One is the Holy Spirit. And I'm not gonna preach a message today on the Holy Spirit, who he is, how he operates, but he is an incredible resource at leading us and guiding us to know God. Some things that we can literally put our hands on, though, that help us to know God is what I want to speak to today. I want to give you a couple of resources before we start the message this morning. The first is this this is your Bible. This is my Bible. Um, and the Bible is an incredible resource for knowing God. And I just want to encourage you guys as we're talking about these attributes, as there's things that you're like, uh what do I believe about that? What does the Bible say about that? See this as your first and primary resource. Don't neglect looking into this. Um, really want to encourage you with that. Um, yeah, just want to encourage you with that. As we talk about that, there's a resource that I just wanted to point out to you that I think is helpful in us understanding this a little bit more, and it's this group called uh the Bible Project. The Bible Project is a nonprofit organization, they're based out in Portland, Oregon, and what they do is they try and like create content to help people get their hands on what is the Bible saying, what's true about the Bible? And so they've got different videos that talk about, they started out as a YouTube channel. They've got different videos that uh that talk about like themes in the Bible, but also a video that kind of is an introduction to every book of the Bible. They've got reading plans. Uh Liz and I are going through one of their reading plans right now. So when you start a new chapter in the Bible, we're reading through the Bible. As you read a new chapter of the Bible, they've got a video that talks about these are the things you can look for. And again, these are just people, okay? This isn't what they say, you've still got to line it, say, okay, is this true in God's word? But it's a very helpful resource. Um I got to actually go out there and visit their offices this week and um be out there in Portland this week. They're getting to do a new classroom experience thing where they're gonna have a video of a classroom, and it's more of like a seminary type level class that you'll be able to watch the hours of that um online and participate in the classroom. And so I got to be a student this week in in that environment. But anyway, I was really encouraged by these guys and what they're doing and the way that they run their office. By the way, I fell on my last day and cut my hand, so that's why I've got this awesome looking little friend here. So I feel like I every other Sunday I'm like getting up here and saying, I injured this or I heard that. I was just hiking in the woods on the Friday. I was waiting for my plane, and so I went out into the woods and I fell and cut my hand on a branch. So have a few stitches in there now. Um anyway, so that's a resource. Second resource that I want to point you towards uh is this. This is Knowing Guide Book by J. A. Packer. Um we stole the name for the series from this, or borrowed, um, and I would encourage you guys uh at outside of the things that we've talked about, the Bible and the Holy Spirit, this has been the most influential book in my personal life in the last two years. This book is incredible in that it really unpacks in a very easy to understand way who God is and how He's created us. So I'd really, I mean, I can't really recommend this highly enough. Great resource. Another resource for you is this one, the knowledge of the holy. Um, this is Toza. It has some great thoughts. Uh it's it's very, very good. We actually will have a few um quotes in today's message from this book, but I would say if if looking at these three extra resources outside of the Bible, okay, first and foremost, all of us should be reading the Bible, but these three other resources, Bible projects kind of like here, then you've got knowledge of the holy, and then you've got, sorry, then you've got knowing God, and then you've got knowledge of the holy. And what I mean by that is you read a page of this book and you'll need to put it down and think about it for a while, okay? So it's like pretty dense, is what I'm trying to say. Whereas the Bible project, it's like videos, you watch it on YouTube, it kind of helps you understand the Bible more. So, does that help a little bit? Just want you guys to have some resources, some tools to help you know God better, because I believe this is the most important thing that we can do with our lives is the quest to know God and to love him, and as Tim was just saying, to delight in him. Let's pray. God, we're about to jump into looking at your word and uh talking about an attribute of you. And as we do that, we just want to acknowledge our dependence and our need on you. God, we we have some form of intellect, but without your spirit coming and breathing life on the things that we're about to say or the things we're about to think about, Lord, it's it's dead. And so we just acknowledge our dependence on you. And say, God, we do want to know you more. We want to love you more, we want to delight in you. And so, God, I just ask with my friends here this morning that you would help us to know you more and to love you more as we look at this attribute today. Thank you. Amen. What can we know about God that is true? This is a question that people, as long as there's been people, have been asking. If there is a God, what can I know about him that is true? What can I take to the bank and say, yeah, that's absolutely true. And people have wrestled with this question for hundreds, for thousands of years. And over the course of history, this line of questioning of, you know, is there a God? And if so, what can we know about him? Has led to all sorts of different things. In particular, in the mid-1600s, the uh Church of England and the Church of Scotland came together and they were saying together, okay, what do we believe is true about God? What are some things that we can agree on looking at God's work, word, praying, asking the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom? What can we know is true about God? And one of the things that came out of that time, and that questioning was the thing called the Westminster Shorter Catechism. And one of the statements that they produced was this. I'm going to read it for you. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Now there's a lot in that sentence. It covers some of the attributes that we've already talked about, and it covers some of the attributes we will talk about, but tucked right into the middle of this whole impressive thought of God is the attribute we're going to talk about today, which is the truth that God is eternal. That He is without time. Now, as we get into this conversation about time, I've just got to give you guys a bit of a disclaimer. I like thinking about time. I think time is a fascinating thing. I think it's a fascinating subject. And if there's ever movies about time, they kind of like pique my interest. So when Liz got me the my wife Liz bought me the box set Blu-ray high-definition trilogy of Back to the Future, I was very excited. Time is a fascinating thing, especially when, and I don't know if you've seen those movies, I'm not necessarily recommending them, but what I am saying is when you start to mess with time, this tension arises. Like it kind of creates a tension. And speaking of tension, I think that the study of God also raises tension. I don't know if you've sensed that, but I certainly have, as we've gone through these attributes of God, there's a tension that is raised in this study. For example, when we talked about the Trinity and the thought that God is one, but he's three in one. That's a tension, right? There's a tension in that. Well, what is it? Both. Well, when we talk about Jesus and we say, yeah, he's fully God and He's fully man, there's a tension in that. Or we talk about the sovereignty of God. You know, and as we talk about that, we talk about choice and free will and the tension of God's will and election. And in that, again, there's tension in all of these truths. But I want to encourage you that we shouldn't run from tension, that tension can actually be a good thing. Think about a guitar string or a cello string, a stringed instrument. It's a string that's run out and there's tension put on it. And before you put tension on it, it sounds terrible, it just flaps and rattles. But once you put that tension on and tune it up, it actually produces a beautiful and rich sound. And what I'm saying to you today is as we look at these attributes of God and there's a tension that's put on it, I want you to see that it actually produces something beautiful. And so today, rather than beating around the bush, I want to cut straight to the tensions that lie in this attribute that God is eternal. The reason I want to do this is as I was studying and looking at this material, I felt like the things that I was starting to write down, I was like making one statement, and then I like look further down, and I'm like, that almost sounds like I'm saying the opposite of what I'm saying there, but both of these things are true. So rather than kind of dancing around this, I want to cut straight to this. So the way we're gonna do this is I'm gonna talk about a couple of tensions, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make a statement, and we'll talk about it, and then we'll look at another statement that kind of holds attention to it, okay? So that's how we're gonna jump in this morning. The first tension, as we're looking at this truth that God is eternal, is this. The first tension comes with this statement God has no beginning and no end. So this is the first half of it. God has no beginning and no end. If somebody asked me to define God is eternal, that's probably a way that I'd try and define it. God has no beginning and no end. When we say that, we say that because of scriptures like Psalm chapter 90, and I want to ask you to turn there. This is gonna be one of our key passages today. Psalm 90, and we're gonna read verse 1 through 6. And it says this. You could even keep a marker in this chapter because we'll be coming back to it. It says this Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation. Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, you are God. You return mankind to the dust, saying, Return, descendants of Adam. For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by, like a few hours of the night. You end their lives, they sleep, they are like grass that grows in the morning. In the morning it sprouts and grows. By the evening it withers and dries up. Did you see this timelessness of God in that passage? It says, from eternity, as in eternity past to eternity, eternity future, God is. Our brains struggle to grapple with this reality. What does that mean? That God is all the way, as far as we can imagine, in both the past and in the future. Let me try and illustrate a little bit for you what we're talking about here. And again, this is not a great illustration, but imagine if me, with me, if I tied a string right here, and I pulled that string out off this speaker stand on one side of the stage, and I rolled it out across to this speaker stand, tied it off here. So you're picturing that with me. And then I was to take a hair from my head, pluck a hair out of my head, and tell you, this hair represents all of the recorded human history that we have. And I was to place that hair onto that string and say to you, this is the time as we know it, in contrast to God and his eternal nature, you know what would be a problem with that analogy? The scale would be way off. Now think about that. If I was to take that string and it extended in both directions, out to the East Coast and the West Coast of America, the scale to that hair would still be off. And if I was to take that string and continue to extend it right around the globe all the way, and maybe if I tied it off and it linked all the way around, then maybe we're starting to get close to understanding the mystery of the eternal nature of God. It's incredible to think about this. It's beyond our understanding. A friend this week mentioned to me, and I think it's a good thought, that one way we perhaps can consider it eternity is to not think of it necessarily as endless time, but the absence of time. If you look at Revelation chapter 22, verse 5, it talks about there that in the future, when we're in the new heavens and the new earth as Christians, and I know I just threw out a whole bunch of theology in one sentence, but that's what we believe, that our eternity is an eternal blessing in the presence of God. In that space, there is no nighttime anymore. That there's just the presence of God and the enjoyment of that, the eternal day. And so, just a thought for you to think about. All this, by all that we're saying with this, what we're trying to say is that God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal. Now the tension comes when I say this second statement, which is also true when it says this God is the beginning and the end. God is the beginning and end. Well, why do I say that? Well, turn with me to Revelation chapter 1, last book of the Bible. Revelation chapter 1. What it says here in verse 8 is the same as what it says, or very similar to what it says in chapter 21, verse 6, and chapter 22, 13, by the way. It says in verse 8 this I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God. The one who is, who was, and who is coming, the Almighty. God describes Himself as the beginning, the Alpha, and the end, the Omega. He's not talking about sororities. Uh what he's talking about here is actually Greek letters of the alphabet. Alpha, the first letter of the alphabet, Omega, the last letter of the alphabet. So we could say that God is basically communicating to us, I am the A and I am the Z. It's similar to what we find in Isaiah chapter 44, verse 6. It'll be on the screen. It says this This is what the Lord, the King of Israel, and its Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, says. I am the first, and I am the last. There is no God but me. So God is like bookends, if you would. He's like a gate at the start of time and at the end of time. God is the introduction and the conclusion. So the tension really lies around, and you've probably already seen this, that God has, like we said at first, no beginning and no end, but at the same time, he is the beginning and the end. So now that you have that tension figured out, let's move on to another one. We're going to talk about this second one. God inhabits all time. This is another truth statement. God inhabits all time, the past, the present, and the future. I don't know if you saw that when we read Revelation 1.8. But it says there, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the one, capital, O, because he's God. Who is, that's the present, who was, that's the past, and who is coming, that's the future, the Almighty. And so what we need to believe is true about God is that God is all present, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. He's omnipresent. And that means that he inhabits all space, as we discussed a few weeks ago, but also he inhabits all time. God inhabits all time and all space. Now imagine with me that we had a, this is a definite imagination, this isn't real, but imagine with me that we had a time machine. And maybe it just looks like a DeLorean with a flux capacitor, okay? So we have a time machine. If we were to jump into that time machine, this truth, what it means is that there is nowhere that we could travel, there is no when that we could travel, that God wouldn't exist in his fullness. No matter where we turn the dial, no matter where we go to in time, we would find God present in all his fullness. Because the reality is true that God is the beginning and the end. And also that he inhabits all time. God is everywhere. He is not just everywhere. Let's make up a word, he is everywhere. God is both everywhere and everywhere. Okay. The tension comes when we hold that statement as true, which it is, with a second statement that says, God is outside of the bounds of time. God is beyond the bounds of time. That is a true statement. Time is not the same for us as it is for God. Psalms 90, verse 4, for in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by, sorry, passes by, like a few hours of the night. Remember when we read that? It was saying that a thousand years is nothing for God. Second Peter is helpful on this. It says in chapter 3, verse 8, with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, but then it inverses that and says, a thousand years is like one day. Time is different to God than it is to us. C.S. Lewis has some thinking on this in his book Mere Christianity. The chapter in particular, and it's an interesting read, is called Time and Beyond Time. And what he says there in part way through the chapter is this almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments one following another. If a million people are praying to him at 10.30 tonight, he need not listen to them all at that one little snippet, which we call 10.30. 10.30 and every other moment from the beginning of the world is always present for him. Wow. That's a lot, right? It's saying that God is outside of the bounds of time. One image that I've found helpful when thinking about this and the way that God relates to time in a different way to us is this chart. This chart is from systematic theology or Bible doctrine by Grudom. And basically what it's saying is God is outside of time. And that he interacts with time differently to us. That the creation of the world is just as present to him as right now, 2018, or as the final judgment, or as the eternal future. God is present in all spaces and times. And again, as I look at this, I'm like, wow. I don't really understand that, but I kind of can start to begin that, to understand that. And it's incredible. This thought that God would be outside of the bounds of time. One of the lines of thinking that is kind of helpful with this, and again, this is from C.S. Lewis, is to think of God as an author. And we as characters in the story that he's writing. Think about how an author interacts with a story that they're writing. The story, inside of the story, the people abound by the time of the story. But the author at any point can put his pen down and walk away from that. And then he can come back to it whenever he wants. And much in the same way. It's not a perfect analogy, and Lewis even owns some of the difficulties with that. But basically what he's saying is that God isn't in the story in the same way that we are in the story. And the tension really lies in the fact that we just said that God inhabits all times, and now we're saying, well, he's actually outside of time. And as we say these things, it kind of sounds like a contradiction, but the tension is actually a good thing. And I want to show you with this one in particular why the tension is a good thing. The tension like this can help us push away from bad theology. One of the bad theologies that I'd highlight to you is the thought of deism. Deism is described as this: the belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. Some people have this world view that there's a God, that he kind of got things going and now he's left us alone. But what we've seen here is that if this was just the way that we saw God and how he was eternal, I think that deism would be a very real possibility. But what we've said is we have to hold this view in tension with what we read in. Revelation chapter 1, verse 8, which tells us that God inhabits all times, that he is the one who was, who is, and who is coming. And so I want to encourage you that this tension, again, is a good thing because it helps bring a corrective to us and reminds us that yes, God is outside the bounds of time, but also he's very intimately involved in our world and in our time. Now we've talked about a couple of tensions to this point. And what I want to do for you right now is I want to read for you a quote that I think kind of summates some of the tension, but also some of the beauty of what we've discussed so far. At this point, we've kind of kept the conversation just about God. And this quote is just a nine-sentence, sorry, nine-sentence, nine-word quote from Toza in his book, The Knowledge of Holy. He says this God dwells in eternity, but time dwells in God. God dwells in eternity, but time dwells in God. That really kind of summates some of the tension and the beauty of what we've talked about to this point. And we could probably, you know, just meditate on this thought now. We could like pack up our books and just head home and say, okay, that's a lot to think about. But I want to encourage you that we shouldn't just leave this thought here. We must push on to see how these thoughts about God impact our lives. I think it's good for us to ask, okay, if this is true, what does it mean for us? What does it mean for us in the way that we live and how we live our lives and the lives that God's called us to? And so I want to ask that question today with you. How does this attribute impact our lives? And what we're going to see is it actually leads to a third tension. The third tension starts with this statement. We are seemingly finite beings. When I say we, I mean humans, mankind. We are seemingly finite beings. You see, being eternal is definitely not a shared attribute, as in it's not something that we share with God. Unless you, you know, pretty out there, you would agree with me on that statement. None of you probably walked in here today thinking, yeah, I'm eternal. Okay? Like, we all agree that we are finite beings, that we have a definite beginning and a definite end. So even though the Bible clearly describes that humans, mankind, is being made in the image of God, you can read about that in Genesis 1, that doesn't mean that we are exactly like God. When we talk about attributes like we've been doing, and we are going to continue the next few weeks, there are shared attributes and there are attributes that we don't share with God. This is one of those. One of the technical terms that you can use for that is to say communicable, things that we have in common with God, and incommunicable attributes. And so I want to encourage you, this one today, that God is eternal, is an incommunicable attribute of God. And what that means is that we are not infinite in our being, we are finite. We're reminded of that even in the scriptures, James 4, verse 14. You may be familiar with this one. You don't even know what tomorrow will bring, what your life will be, for you are like what? Smoke that appears for a little while and then vanishes. It's a little bit sobering, but that's true. Job 7.7, similar. Remember that my life is but a breath. Sobering reality. But the truth is we all have a starting point when we at that moment of conception we exist, and then we also seem, and again, that's the key word here, seemingly have an end point, which is the death of this body. Now the tension comes when we hold that statement that we are seemingly finite beings, with this second statement. We long, we as humans long for eternity. I think long is the right word for that. There is a desire in us for eternity. Turn with me, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Ecclesiastes 3, and we're going to go to verse 11. It's after the book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes 3.11 says this, and this is God speaking. Sorry, it's speaking about God, and it says this. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts. But man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end. So there we have the eternal nature of God. We can't discover the work, all that God's done from beginning to end. But he has put what? Eternity in our hearts. There is something in us which yearns for more than just these few short years that we have in our lives. Psalms 90 again, which is so helpful, in verse 10, says this our lives last 70 years, or if we are strong, 80 years. Even the best of them are a struggle and sorrow. Indeed, they pass quickly and we fly away. Again, a very sobering passage, but it's true. Our lives are short. And death just does not sit well with us. Those of you who have experienced death, or what I mean by that, death of people close to you or people that you love will most likely agree with what I'm saying. Death does not sit well with us. I remember a couple of years ago, I was talking with a friend in Australia, and they were telling me about the passing of their elderly father. And as they were telling me this story, they were sharing about how a lot of people at the funeral were coming up to them and kind of, you know, patting them on the shoulder, giving them a hug and saying, Well, you know, he lived a good life. One of the silly ways that we say that in Australia is we say he had a good innings, like in cricket. That's kind of the term. But anyway, they they were coming up and saying, Well, he had a good innings, didn't he? He had a good life. And this friend said to me that they felt like screaming out, or even, you know, grabbing these people and saying, No, no, my dad's gone. It's not okay. I don't like this. Yes, he lived a long life, but it wasn't enough. And I remember that conversation so clearly because death does not sit well for us. Why is that? The reason this doesn't feel right is because God has placed eternity in the spirit of man. We are designed to live forever. Your soul, your spirit is designed to live forever. The scripture teaches us that we have, yes, a definite starting point, but also that we have no end point. We will exist eternally with God in a new heavens and a new earth, or we'll exist eternally in hell. And I know this isn't a subject that we all want to jump into and talking about hell. That's not exciting, it doesn't make everybody feel good, but we're talking about eternity. We're talking about the eternal nature of God, and we have to go here. We all are designed to live for eternity. The question of what does that look like? That's the question. What's it going to look like for me? What's it gonna look like for you and for the friends and family and those that we love around us? Because we're lived, designed to live for eternity, we have this definite starting point. We could possibly say, and again, create a word and say that we are semi-finite beings. Or we are semi-infinite beings. Maybe you'd rather that. We have a definite starting point, but we are all designed to live for eternity. Now, some of us don't like this thought of hell and the implications of what this means, and so there's this thought out there called universalism. Universalism, it's a fancy word, but it just means one of the things that it means is that basically in eternity, everybody gets to experience something good. That eternity is going to be a big group hug in heaven one day, and that everybody will be happy and okay, and that's how it's going to be, but you will not find that as a reality, as a truth in the Word of God. It's not true. It's a false doctrine. Another false doctrine out there is the thought of annihilationism, and again, a big fancy word, but it comes from the word annihilate, which means to terminate. And what that belief holds to is that yes, those who uh cry out to God will eternally live in the blessing and goodness of God, but those who reject God will be like their heart, their soul, their spirit will be terminated, that they'll cease to exist. But again, as I read my Bible, I cannot hold that that is true. In an article I was reading this week, uh J.I. Packer said this views about hell should not be discussed outside of the frame of the gospel. And so as I stand up here today and say to all of you, we have an eternal future, the question is where that is. Hear me saying that hell is absolutely 100% optional. This third tension, and this is where I want to speak to the gospel, the third tension is this sin and death have corrupted the future we all long to have. But thankfully, this particular tension has a resolution. We don't have to hold on to this tension because there is a resolution. How so? Well, the resolution is the person and the work of Jesus. God wrote himself into our story so that we can enjoy eternity with him. Remember the illustration we used earlier about the author? The incredible news is that God wrote himself into our story at great cost to himself so that we don't have to have an eternal future that does looks miserable. We have a hope for the future. He who is timeless came down into time to secure a blessed eternity for those who would cling to him. And there's nothing I can do better at this point than to read God's word for you. John 17, 3 says this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the key to an eternal future. We all are at odds with God, and unless we cry out to him and reach out to him, we are destined for eternity away from him. Away from his goodness. I want to read for you John 3. And I know that this is a passage that you are probably very familiar with. Of all the Bible passages that anybody knows, John 3.16 is probably the best known. But I want to read for you John 3.16, 17 and 18. And I want you to hear it with fresh ears, especially in this light of this conversation about eternity and being and experiencing the goodness of God and the grace of God in heaven or in hell. Hear this with fresh ears, John 3.16. For God loved the world in this way. He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world that he might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned. Amen. But anyone who does not believe is already condemned. Because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Without Jesus, eternity is a terrible prospect. But with Jesus, eternity is an awesome reality. We are all eternal in that we are all designed to live forever. And my heart, my prayer for you, each one of you, I don't know all of you personally, but my prayer for every one of you is that you would know that God sent his son so that you can have eternal life with him. Jesus offers us eternal joy with himself, with God the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. And my prayer is that you would you would find yourself believing that and reaching out to him. So the question that remains is, what do you think? Are the things we're talking about today true? Is there a God? Is he eternal? Are we designed to join him for eternity? Or is life just about these few short, fleeting years that we have here? What do you believe? If God is eternal and we are designed by him and for him, we must do a few things. And this is where I really want to dig into what does this practically mean to us? I want to give you four final thoughts on this. The first one is this if God is eternal, we must worship him. Absolutely, we must worship him. You see, as we examine this reality, my hope is that it's been this awesome opportunity to kind of pull back out and be like, wow, God is eternal. Think about that string analogy. All of human history is like a hair on a string that stretches around the globe. And that still is a bad picture. The perspective that comes from that is this we are small, and God is big, and he is worthy of our praise, of our worship, of our lives. And so my hope is that you would be experiencing that and feeling that even right now. Thoughts about God's timelessness when led by the Holy Spirit should lead not to a sense of frustration, but of awe and wonder. And so I'm hoping that you're feeling that today. For some of you, this call to worship God may be the first time that you respond to it. I'm praying for that. As I've been preparing, I've been praying that some of you would hear the gospel. The good news that Jesus gives you a hope for eternity for the first time and that you would believe it. That today, October 21st, 2018, would be the moment that you make that decision. And so if that's you today, if you're like, yeah, I need a God, because my eternity is not secure. Man, come and tell me. Like, let's talk about that. I want to hear that. Like, I my my prayer is after the service, so during our prayer time, like let's talk about what that means because that is the most important decision you will ever make. Ever make. For others of you, this call to worship may be your 5,000th time to respond to it. And that's okay. Don't get blasé, don't get comfortable with the thought that God is eternal. May it produce in you just a sense of wow. Awe and wonder today. This thought absolutely should produce worship in us. Second thing that I'd encourage you to think about is if God is eternal, we must acknowledge our dependence on Him. We should walk away today with a sense of our dependence on God. The scriptures we've focused on today show our the feebleness of mankind and the grandeur of God. And we talk about feeble or dependence, and we're like, ugh, that sounds like a bad thing. Maybe that's like, I don't know if that's like a Western thing or what, but there's something about us that wants to push away from that. And I want to say to you today, don't. Like our dependence on God is a beautiful thing. That's how he designed us. We're created to have a dependence on him. And it's a beautiful thing. It's like a father and a child. That's how we're adopted into his family. Like it's a beautiful picture. This thought that we are God's children. And so being dependent is a good thing. Let's humbly embrace our dependence on him today. And what I mean by that is some of you today need to quit trying to be God. If you're dependent on God, you're not God. His God. Allow him to do his job. Don't try and do his job for him. I don't know, I'm sure there's some of you with situations in your life, I have some actually, where I'm trying to be God, where I'm like, let me step in and figure this out. And that's not, that doesn't honor him. His role is to be our father, and he is a good and perfect father. I gotta keep moving. The third thought. If God is eternal, we must use our time for him. Absolutely, yes. Your life, my life, is a precious resource. I don't know about you, but as we've talked about the scale of time, I'm like, wow. Life is short. Let's live it well. Let's use it wisely. The best investment of our time is to use our lives for God's glory. Psalm 90 again. It's so good. I'd encourage you to go home and read it just maybe over a few times. Psalm 90 says, verse 12, teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. I just want to say this to you. Our time, if you're a Christian, your time, my time, has been purchased with the blood of Jesus, which has infinite value. And when we waste that time that is purchased with the blood of Jesus, it's like us taking the blood of Christ and flushing it. How wrong, how insulting. And so I want to encourage you, let's use our time well. It's a gift. And I'm saying this to myself just as much as I'm saying it to any of you guys. That includes not binge watching TV. That includes not like delving into countless mindless hours on video games or whatever else. I'm just trying to like think of some things that we waste our time on. Sometimes it's like obsessing over the next thing that we want to buy or a hobby or, you know, all of these things. I'm trying to think of things personally that at times I've struggled with. If our time is purchased by the blood of Christ, let's use it well. The fourth thing is this: if God is eternal, we must live in his peace. Live in his peace. You see, God sees and knows all things. I don't know about you, but this thought is kind of amazing and yet simultaneously comforting to me. That there is nowhere that I have been or nowhere that I will be in the future that God hasn't already been in that space. So if I or if you get a phone call telling you of some terrible news about someone that you love. Or if you find yourself in a conversation across the table from somebody who you have loved who tells you I don't want to be around you anymore. Or if you find yourself in an office across from your boss who's telling you to pack up your things and leave. God has already been in that time. He's already been in that space. And what that can and should bring to you is great peace and great comfort. I think I've mentioned this before, but there's that old gospel song that says, Because he lives. It's so beautiful. It says, Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth a living just because he lives. And I draw a great comfort from that, those thoughts, those truths today as we look at this internal nature of God. No matter where we find ourselves in the future, we can know that God knows, that God cares, that God is present, because God is eternal. That's right. God, we thank you. God, we thank you. That you are eternal. And we just acknowledge as a big group here today, but as a group, we acknowledge that that is beyond our comprehension. And that, yes, there are absolutely tensions in our mind when we try and think about that. But God, we believe that that's good. And we thank you that you hold all of time in your hand. Which means you hold us in your hand. God, I pray that our hearts would be comforted today if we know you. And God, if we do not know you, I pray that our hearts would be disturbed. That you would shake us out of our apathy. To realize that eternity is real, that you have created, you placed eternity in our hearts. And that we would see that we need to cry out to you to have a hope for eternity. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the ways that it's encouraged us today. Lord, I pray that even as we have time to respond in these next few minutes, that there'd be a real sense of awe and wonder in our worship. That we'd be reminded again of how big you are and how small we are. And that that wouldn't be frustrating, but it would actually be a really good thing. That we'd be able to let go of some of the things that we're worried about. We'd be able to let go of the future, knowing that you hold it all in your hand. Thank you, God. Thank you for these truths. Thank you for this truth today that you are eternal. And we worship you together. Amen.